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00:00:40.820Hi, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with
00:00:45.640Right Response Ministries. And in this particular episode, I'm very privileged to welcome onto the
00:00:50.980show for the first time someone that, even though it's our first time discussing these things
00:00:56.000together, I have from a distance, as many of you listening have, been immensely blessed by his
00:01:01.780public preaching and writing and ministry. So, without further ado, let's welcome our guest,
00:01:07.840Pastor Votie Bauckham. Mercy Meadows Ranch is a family-owned and operated cattle company
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00:01:38.700community to become your trusted beef supplier in support of a multi-generational family heritage.
00:01:45.760And because of their bulk beef deposit launch taking place this summer, they are hosting a giveaway to stuff your family's freezer with their grass-fed, grain-finished, beef-raised right on their ranch.
00:02:00.760Now, to enter the giveaway, go to the link in the description and enter your email and you'll be all set.
00:02:08.000Mercy Meadows Ranch. Check out their website, mercymeadowsranch.com.
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00:03:26.240at gmail.com. Send them an email today. Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
00:08:11.480I heard you with Tom Askell recently saying that the Zambians, the Christians in our nation,
00:08:18.720we envy their preamble, a distinctly Christian preamble.
00:08:22.160um but that they actually envy our heritage and that the heritage the preamble matters right why
00:08:28.480why not both let's have both if we if we can't let's work towards both but uh but that the
00:08:32.960heritage um has stronger implications in in the here and now could you could you flesh that out
00:08:38.760a little bit what do you see is the heritage of america yeah it just i've often said that
00:08:47.460If you want to know everything that you need to know about a culture, just experience a four-way stop.
00:08:56.700And you'll see what's really ingrained in the culture, whether people are stopping, waiting their turn, being courteous, or whether the only law is the law of physics and whether or not I can get my bumper in front of yours.
00:09:13.480And, you know, it's interesting, you know, in the United States, you can be on the road, middle of the night and, you know, at a red light, you stop that that's that's part of our heritage, you know, and living in parts of the world where, you know, that that's just not that's just not the thing.
00:09:36.860And again, that's just a small example. There are many, many more, but that's just one really sort of tangible example. Another one is, you know, I live in a city, I live in the capital city here in Osaka, and most people walk here in Osaka, but there are almost no sidewalks.
00:09:55.860um in in the u.s very few people are walking where they're going but we have sidewalks everywhere
00:10:04.200and that's part of our heritage right that that's that's part of our heritage in terms of
00:10:10.860not just infrastructure either but in terms of value of life protection of life um you know
00:10:18.420There are little things like that all over the place that just remind me of that long-rooted heritage and culture.
00:10:30.980Yeah, I think part of the problem, this is one of my suspicions, but I think part of the problem is as America drifted the American church in terms of its doctrine and false gospels like the prosperity gospel, sometimes there's an overreaction.
00:10:44.340And I think at some level in our defense in shoring up the true gospel of Jesus Christ
00:10:50.460against particularly the false gospel of prosperity, we almost threw out the baby with the bath
00:10:57.000water in regards to a simple biblical principle, in my assessment, which is that obedience
00:11:03.900And not just blessing, it guarantees blessing in the life to come.
00:11:07.640Yeah. But ordinarily, and I'll give that qualifier ordinarily, ordinarily obedience brings blessing in this life as well. And that's that's not the prosperity. What I always tell people is the prosperity gospel is the equivalent of me teaching my children that when they turn 18 every single Friday, they should stop at the same liquor store and buy a lottery ticket and play the same numbers. And if they do it faithfully long enough, eventually they'll be rich. Right. It's the prosperity gospel is the power of positivity. It's manifesting.
00:11:35.860it's about faith in our faith, it's hopeful, it's wishing. That's very different than the basic
00:11:41.560biblical principle of hard work, ordinarily, is fruitful. Now, there are some contexts that break
00:11:48.000the mold. There's always exceptions. There's some faithful Christians in North Korea that aren't
00:11:52.460seeing a lot of fruit. But that's why I say ordinarily. But in a country like America,1.00
00:11:58.120the Christian can expect that obedience would produce a certain measure of a blessing,
00:12:05.160not just in the life to come, but even in this life as well.
00:12:08.600And so we look at whether it's the four-way stop and we're courteous, you know, and waiting
00:12:12.100our turn with the right of way, or whether it's, you know, the sidewalks and the things
00:12:16.560that you've mentioned, seeing these as tangible physical blessings in this world, in this
00:12:21.620life, but they're directly correlated to obedience to the Word of God, where the Word
00:12:26.860of God is received and honored and esteemed and obeyed, not just by individuals, but in
00:12:34.220societies at large, we should expect there to be tangible blessings. But I think we've just
00:12:39.840become so spiritual. Everything's spiritual. We'll reject the prosperity gospel, and we kind of
00:12:45.480threw out in rejecting the prosperity gospel, throwing out the baby with the bathwater with
00:12:51.040that very biblical principle, obedience brings blessing. God is sovereign over the ends as well
00:12:56.840the means, right? And so with my children, God is sovereign over the salvation of my children,
00:13:04.960but the sovereign God has also given me means. He's given me very clear instructions about
00:13:10.960bringing up my children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, about me washing them0.75
00:13:18.860and my wife with the water of the word, again, the ends and the means. The other thing is that
00:13:25.660you say, you know, that obedience should bring blessing. But the fact of the matter is that
00:13:30.420obedience has brought blessing. If you look at a globe and you ask yourself, where are the freest,
00:13:38.860most prosperous, right? You know, safest people in the world, where are women most protected?
00:13:47.900Where are women safest? Where do they have most protection and most rights in the world?1.00
00:13:53.120The answer is follow the Protestant Reformation, right?0.74
00:13:58.040Where are the lowest corruption rates in the world?0.57
00:14:01.140Everybody's got some corruption, right?
00:14:02.540But where are the lowest corruption rates?0.98
00:14:03.940The answer is follow the Protestant Reformation.0.58
00:14:06.900Even in Europe, Northern Europe versus Southern Europe, there's a huge difference.
00:14:17.600And so, yeah, there not only should be, but there is blessing.
00:14:22.280And I think it's not only ironic, but sad that we refuse to acknowledge that. And in fact, if you think about it, the people who are, you know, complaining the most, for example, you know, where are women protesting the most about, you know, not having rights and not having protections in those parts of the world where they have it more than anybody else?
00:14:46.500You know, I live in a part of the world where not too far from here, female genital mutilation is the norm, right? And child brides and selling brides, you know, that's a real thing, not too far from where I am. So, you know, again, I think you're right. I would just add that caveat, not only should it bring blessing, but it has.
00:15:11.320well that's great i love your caveat because i was trying to go real reasonable play the good
00:15:16.980cop i'll let you do the bad because i was trying to be real reasonable say you know it could
00:15:21.860obedience might can we at least consider it might bring blessing and i love that you said no no no
00:15:26.600no it does bring blessing because i i agree so i i see in many ways it feels like um you and i would
00:15:33.940both agree neutrality is a myth um the myth of neutrality uh that that all laws are moral um
00:15:39.300that that and i'm not saying you're necessarily comfortable with this word but i would i'll just
00:15:43.900speak for myself i would see that uh for every individual for every family for every um for
00:15:48.900every nation that is in the civil realm every government that that it is theocratic uh which
00:15:53.860for the record that scares people a theocracy is very distinct from an ecclesiocracy i'm i've never
00:16:00.260advocated for a church-run state i'm not advocating for a protestant pope um but i do think that that
00:16:06.780the reality is that theocracy, not ecclesiocracy, separation of church and state, but no separation
00:16:12.140of Christ and state. Caesar is under God. Caesar is a servant. He's a deacon. He is not head of
00:16:19.600himself. So every single entity, both the family, the church, and the state, it's not excluded from
00:16:26.180this principle, there is a God above them. And it's not whether but which. It is a theocracy.
00:16:31.240It's either a theocracy that ultimately is underneath in submission to the triune God
00:16:37.020as God, or it's Demos, the people, or the state, it's statism, totalitarianism, all
00:16:42.520these different things, or it's pagan, some pagan God.
00:16:45.200And so with all that being said, it seems like we've switched gods in the West.
00:16:50.420And you could argue at the time, you know, 50 years ago, 130 years ago, you could go
00:16:54.580back to the Enlightenment, you know, or whatever, but we've switched gods.
00:16:57.860and it seems like you know this this these ships move slowly um because of the principle of sowing
00:17:04.500you know uh sowing and reaping um and and and god's faithfulness he will not be mocked and so
00:17:08.800you sow you sow good seed you're going to reap a harvest for a while after you stop sowing and so
00:17:13.980these ships chrysidom and and i think paganism that they they have been kind of slowly passing
00:17:21.180in the night and it seems like there was not just a couple weeks or months or years but decades in
00:17:26.400our nation where the two ships were kind of like like side by side they had lined up for a moment
00:17:31.320and it was it was seemingly because they move slow a long moment that gave the optic that that
00:17:36.980neutrality is viable uh that it actually works but it doesn't and and i'm of the persuasion that
00:17:44.280secularism is not viable uh that it's actually a placeholder it functions as as not a host but but
00:17:50.500a parasite once it's killed its host namely chrysidom that that secularism will actually
00:17:55.500only be replaced by some form of paganism. And it seems as though that's been ramping up. And a lot0.67
00:18:01.760of young guys like me are seeing that because we haven't lived the majority of our lives in our
00:18:07.940adult lives. My adult life was not in the 70s, in the 80s, in the 90s. I was a little kid born in
00:18:15.120the 80s. And so a lot of my adult life, what I've seen is classical liberalism and some of our
00:18:22.760our systems utterly failing. And so I don't have a strong dog in the fight of like, we got to get
00:18:29.540back to that. So there's a lot of young guys right now are like, let's be Christian. Let's be a
00:18:34.760Christian nation. And let's bring that into the civil realm. What would you say to young guys
00:18:39.580like me? Where are we? Is there too much zeal? Are we on track? What are we doing right? What
00:18:46.940are we maybe doing wrong? Yeah, I think there are a couple of issues at play. And one of those
00:18:52.320issues is, um, kind of a, a theological nearsightedness, uh, theological, um, ignorance.
00:19:00.700And I think for a long time, you think about the, the church growth movement all the way
00:19:07.980In the sixties and seventies, um, this sort of big revivalist movement and, you know,
00:19:13.940churches growing and then the church growth movement, um, you know, I'm 54.
00:19:20.700Um, I, I came to faith, you know, at 18. Um, and so I saw a lot of that stuff, right.
00:19:29.900And there was this sense in which, you know, if you just pull the right levers, um, the church
00:19:37.400would grow and, you know, and then the, the religious right, right. Comes along. And again,
00:19:45.520And if we just use our influence, you know, if we just have the right people in the right place, then we can get the people that we need in the places that we need and, you know, we can make things happen.
00:19:59.440Because, again, we're this big, powerful behemoth with churches that have thousands of people.
00:20:08.080And in the midst of that, what we weren't doing was thinking.
00:20:15.520We became extremely pragmatic during that time.
00:20:21.740And so we've got a couple of generations now of people who have been raised in pragmatic Christianity, who haven't been thinking, who weren't mentored or discipled by people who thought very much other than, you know, pragmatism.
00:20:39.680And now when this generation hits a crisis, all we've got is knee jerk reactions.
00:20:49.400We've got nothing that's well thought out.
00:20:52.580And so that's why you see sort of shouting matches from people going off half cocked who are using terminologies and promoting ideologies with which they've only become familiar recently.
00:21:05.700um and and i think that's what we're seeing right now right yeah i i think that i think that that's
00:21:15.520absolutely true um it's tough with the pragmatism thing it's tough for me um because i don't want
00:21:24.180to be pragmatic i see the drawbacks with that but one of the the debates that i've been in
00:21:30.300lately with some of my Baptist brothers is, well, it's got to be bottom up. If there is going to be
00:21:38.260revival or reformation, if there is going to be a stop, if we're going to put a stop to
00:21:46.020drag queen story hour, sexual mutilation of children, 65 million plus babies murdered in0.56
00:21:54.820their mother's wombs, it's got to be bottom up through the preaching of the gospel,
00:22:00.300regenerate hearts um we need more christians and yet i i feel like it's it's never less than that
00:22:08.940so my argument is never an alternative to that i'm a local pastor first and foremost i preach
00:22:14.460the gospel um so it's never less than that that's the tip of the spear but in addition to that i
00:22:21.820feel like now you can make an argument that in the 70s and the 80s and even the 50s and 60s
00:22:27.100that our numbers were skewed, that we were bolstering in typical Southern Baptist fashion,
00:22:32.900you know, a lot more on the roster than there actually are in the pew, that the numbers were
00:22:36.520skewed and that we had a lot of people attending church and professing Christ, but they weren't
00:22:39.960actually regenerate. And so you can say, because what I'm about to say is I think we've had the
00:22:44.160numbers and it still failed. That's kind of what you just said. And then I know some of my brothers
00:22:48.200would say, but we didn't really have the true numbers because there wasn't solid, faithful
00:22:53.200gospel preaching that actually converts the soul and i see all of that this is my one my one push
00:22:59.340back to to to not even what you said but to to some of my brothers is the sodomites took three
00:23:05.600percent less than three percent of the population and with a 40 to 50 year plan they have effectively0.64
00:23:12.140replaced the flag of the united states of america with a rainbow and my point in saying that is
00:23:19.400that um it's never less than bottom-up gospel preaching regeneration new hearts and yet at the
00:23:27.020same time um there are christians now who actually as individual christians not just churches talking
00:23:34.500about politics individual christian men serving as civil magistrates and and they're wanting to know
00:23:40.800how how can i be a city council member christianly does the bible say something to me in my vocation
00:23:49.220or is it just the sphere of home and church and if the bible does like am i supposed to be a
00:23:55.340christian in every realm of life but when i walk into this sphere the public sphere that i take
00:24:02.660that christian hat off that i lay it aside i adopt neutral terms um and or can i say yeah it's got
00:24:11.580to be bottom-up, preach, regeneration, salvation, discipleship, and at the same time that we can
00:24:18.920ethically and even must, commanded by God ethically, to pull some of these state levers
00:24:24.640in a Christian direction. What do you think? I'm always skeptical. Whenever somebody says to me,0.78
00:24:32.500it has to be dot, dot, dot. That's not the God I serve, right? Sometimes the king finds the
00:24:42.940word of God and revival breaks out, right? That's right. So yeah, I'm never comfortable
00:24:51.140when someone says it has to be this or it has to be that. I think the answer is all of the above.
00:25:01.480I think the answer is faithfulness wherever we find ourselves, right?
00:25:05.980That has to be the answer, you know, faithfulness wherever we find ourselves.
00:30:13.200And, you know, but here was the issue.
00:30:16.720There were always disagreements, right?
00:30:20.500Even in, you know, sort of these broader Reformed circles, whether you call it Young Restless and Reformed, New Calvinism, you know, whatever you want to call it.0.64
00:30:30.880These circles that were really sort of growing and percolating, you know, during that time that brought about the sort of Acts 29s and the T4Gs and the Gospel Coalitions and all of these sorts of things.0.90
00:30:42.980Everybody knew that there were divisions, that there was a lack of agreement, right?0.63
00:30:51.300We had our Presbyterians and our Baptists and, you know, our Dispensationalists and Reformed.
00:30:58.340And, you know, we had all of that and everybody acknowledged that we had those differences, yet there was something greater that was holding us together, right?
00:31:09.300And so I don't think that, you know, with the Black Lives Matter movement and with COVID and all this, that somehow, you know, people change.
00:31:26.400I think that these movements actually, you know, drew a line in the sand, right?
00:31:33.200They drew fault lines and they were non-negotiables.
00:31:40.200They were more non-negotiable than pedo-baptism, credo-baptism, right?
00:31:49.860So it's not that we didn't have disagreements before.
00:31:54.080It's that these things came about and these things became non-negotiables.
00:31:59.680And the culture made them non-negotiables, right?
00:32:02.780The culture is the one that said, you know, if you're if you're wrong on this issue, racial justice as defined by the culture, you're outside the camp and there is no, you know, going along to get along.
00:32:17.600There is no neutrality on this issue. Right.
00:32:20.900Baptism, you know, we can disagree on and go our own ways.
00:32:24.460But this issue of, you know, so-called racial justice, that's something where you disqualify yourself.
00:32:32.780So that's what we saw. That's what happened. And then all of a sudden, now we're seeing, you know, the other shoe that dropped. And I remember, right, I'm in the middle of, you know, being entrenched, you know, fault lines and all the attacks that are coming because of fault lines.
00:32:50.400And, you know, people, you know, using means legitimate and illegitimate, you know, to try to to try to discredit fault lines.
00:32:59.400And all of a sudden, you know, I felt like there was real traction.
00:33:05.300I felt like there were a lot of people who were saying, yes, amen and thank you.
00:33:10.420Right. And then there was more boldness in in in.
00:33:44.740you know, citing books by people who are barely in the camp, if at all, um, you, you, you know,
00:33:55.540um, and, and I think a lot of us at that point were going, okay, first of all, um, define your
00:34:02.620terms, you know, like, like, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Um, define your terms.
00:34:09.520You're saying like, like, um, like don't just talk past each other on Twitter, maybe take the
00:34:13.620time to write like a statement on your terms of christian nationalism defining what you mean
00:34:19.500like if someone did that for instance just hypothetically just hypothetically you know
00:34:24.540and but the great thing about statements you know because again in 2000 and and um you know man
00:34:31.460covid just messed up the calendar i think it was the social justice statement yeah 18 was that was
00:34:37.680it 18 or 19 i think it was 18 or 19 yeah um you know when we came out i signed it proudly yeah
00:34:43.360When we came up with that statement, you know, on social justice in the gospel, you know, the great thing about that was that it was a way for people to be identified.
00:35:08.100They get rid of the squishiness, you know.
00:35:11.740And, you know, sometimes people will say, yes, but and they have a legitimate, you know, grief.
00:35:21.400And they'll say this, you know, technical issue right here, you know, the way you worded that or the way, you know, whatever.
00:35:28.080Right. And that's fine. That's great, because that helps the people who write the statement to sort of massage it, you know, if necessary.
00:35:35.580um but what we experienced was people just going um no and we're going okay why where
00:35:46.300just no it's not wrong um it's just pastorally unwise and insensitive right it's not it's not
00:35:55.240what the statement says yeah it's what it does yes exactly yeah yeah yeah tim keller tim keller
00:36:01.800Yeah. It's not what it says. It's what it does. Yeah. That, that was, that was, that was classic right there. But my point, but, you know, my point is that at first, you know, the people who were using the term Christian nationalism, they've always liked Christian nationalism.
00:36:19.120Because, again, for the neo-Marxist and for the intersectional, you know, people, you know, you use all three of those terms because the demonic, hegemonic, oppressive power in the United States is, you know, white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, native born, you know, able-bodied, you know, on down to.
00:36:48.140and then you get to you know christian right christianity is is is at the root of the hegemonic
00:36:53.460power so when you say that's what they hate yes that's what they hate everything else exactly is
00:36:58.240just an angle towards exactly exactly it's all about they hate christ yes so when you say white
00:37:03.780christian nationalism you get an intersectional boogeyman right and so that's right the the the
00:37:10.480lack of clarity was coming from the people who were using that terminology so when i say define
00:37:14.920terms, you know, I was like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? I might be, I might be
00:37:20.300right there with you. You know, I might agree that it's, you know, CRT is a problem and this
00:37:26.420thing, whatever you're, you know, defining is a problem. And then I go and read, you know, some
00:37:30.940of the books, you know, what is it? Codes de Mez, for example. And, you know, Jesus and John
00:37:37.940Wayne, which is one that everybody was touting and pointing to. And I'm going, this is not even
00:37:44.220in the camp you know right this is this is out of bounds not even in the camp you know and this is
00:37:52.800what we're what we're using and what we're touting for you know so i think now we're seeing um
00:37:59.340a response on the other end where where people are saying okay fine if you want to throw that
00:38:05.380terminology around um and not define it or define it poorly um you know the other one
00:38:12.800the really popular one was um what was it was taking america back for god i forget the authors
00:38:19.100of that one but that one had a lot of traction i can't remember but yeah but that one had a lot
00:38:23.740of traction as well um and and at least you know made more of an effort to really define christian
00:38:30.400nationalism but the way they defined it included jews and you know black people were included as
00:38:36.780white christian nationalists and you know all this other sort of stuff um so it's now people
00:38:41.700on the other side going okay fine here's where here's where we stand here's what we you know
00:38:48.140understand in all of this um but again it's it's part of it's part of this same battle it's just
00:38:56.860the next front in this in this same battle and we have to clarify it i think theology
00:39:04.780theology sharpens over time and it sharpens with sharp disputes disagreements in fact in the
00:39:10.560providence of god he often raises up heretics just so that the church will go back to the drawing
00:39:15.400board and shore up their theology on the hypostatic union or so short you know and
00:39:19.980when we forget that it's like yes there is a strength undoubtedly i'm confessing there's a
00:39:25.600strength to church history but we forget that it that it took about 400 years to figure out who god
00:39:30.520is you know and and and to figure out is that you know the dual nature of christ as the second
00:39:36.860member of the trinity and and the way i see the big picture and it's part of this is my
00:39:40.980post-millennialism talking but i you know the first thousand years it's like theology proper
00:39:45.320doctrine of god the next thousand years soteriology right that's a big one let's let's figure to dial
00:39:50.060that in with the reformation figure out how are people saved i i have a sneaking suspicion right
00:39:54.900here on the beginning of this third millennium um since since christ and and his earthly ministry
00:40:01.220i think christian ethics is going to be a big one i don't know if it'll be the one but i think you
00:40:06.400know who is god um who is man and how is he saved soteriology but then christian ethics and i and i
00:40:13.840think the civil magistrate is going to be a big part of that and our understanding of um how do
00:40:18.880these things play out how does this apply how does you know go ahead it seems like you're going to
00:40:23.560say something yeah and i'm saying even in in all of those things it was never new right there were
00:40:31.260There were always people who were right on all of those things.
00:40:35.280But the time, you know, it took time to sort of separate the wheat and the chad.
00:40:42.660There are people who've been writing and thinking rightly on these issues for a long, long time.
00:40:51.700And interestingly enough, what people are having to do is to go back to some of those people who were writing and thinking rightly on these issues, you know, in order to sort of, you know, backfill and move forward.
00:41:11.060And it's like you said, it's a good thing because it sharpens.
00:43:59.320But the problem is we can't even get, not only can we not get to the true unity, we can't
00:44:03.940get to the true unity because we can't even get to the true division right now we still see
00:44:08.580squabbling over um tone method um we need to i'd like to see some real division over arguments
00:44:16.040over substance and and that goes for both sides by the way like but we really need to engage
00:44:21.800make me an argument uh from the bible give me bible uh for why christian culture is a net
00:44:31.880negative. I understand Christian culture in a societal at-large way can produce or at least0.99
00:44:40.540influence nominal Christianity, nominal seminaries, nominal doctrine, nominal preaching to the point
00:44:47.880where the gospel is assumed, eventually neglected, eventually utterly lost, to produce less
00:44:54.280conversion. Now, but wait a second, you're making me that argument. Do you catechize your kids?
00:44:59.760did you take them out of public school and put them in a christian school or home school
00:45:04.740so in the sphere of your individual family you're treating christian culture not as though it's
00:45:11.580salvific because no one's saying that but you are treating it as though it is good that the law of
00:45:18.080god has an evangelistic sense no man will be saved by works as done unto the law but it is a tutor
00:45:23.140and the law insofar as it accurately reflects god's holiness it therefore reveals man's
00:45:29.620sinfulness and drives us to christ as the only one who can fill that infinite chasm
00:45:34.420yeah but you're doing that in your home can we do that in a country can we do that in a country
00:45:39.740but think about what i said before with you know the the jesus movement and the church growth
00:45:45.540movement and all these other things there was an anti-intellectualism and an anti-confessionalism
00:45:50.900And because of that, you know, talking about the law, talking about the threefold division of the law, talking about the three uses of the law, this is foreign to an entire generation, right?
00:46:07.880And so, you know, you're already talking about something that's two, three steps ahead of where people are ready to, yeah, of where people are ready to engage.
00:46:20.360So, again, there's a lot of backfilling that needs to be done.
00:46:27.400And, well, anyway, you know, by God's grace.
00:53:44.360And so justice is not optional for the people of God.
00:53:48.840That's why it's so critical that we understand what justice is.
00:53:53.180one of the dangers of the social justice movement is that it uses terminology that on the surface
00:54:02.540sounds like it ought to be what we as Christians are about. Social justice. Am I against justice?
00:54:12.880Of course not. I'm for justice. Anti-racism. Am I pro-racism? Of course not.
00:54:18.460so what we need to do is get behind these terms get behind these words and look at two things
00:54:29.300number one look at what people mean when they use them in this cultural moment and number two
00:54:36.780evaluate that in light of what the bible says about the same issues so for example when we
00:54:45.740talk about justice from a biblical perspective. Justice means the righteous application,
00:54:52.440the impartial application of the law of God in a given circumstance. We're told that we're not
00:54:59.640to be impartial to the poor or to the rich. We have to apply God's law equally across the board.
00:55:09.400Social justice means something very different. And so if we're going to have conversations
00:55:15.320about justice, if we're going to have conversations about contemporary issues of our day,
00:55:22.160we're going to have to do so in light of what the Word of God has to teach about all of these issues
00:55:30.200and while evaluating the cultural moment.
00:55:36.860You know, I've come a long way on a lot of these issues.
00:55:40.360I am a guy who had as probably the biggest hero of my life, Malcolm X.
00:55:52.100I am a guy who was always very Afrocentric, very, you could say, social justice oriented.
00:56:03.660As a believer, I came to a crossroads, and I recognized that, for the most part, I identified a lot more with my blackness than I did with my Christianity.
00:56:19.980For the most part, it was much more important to me that I was black than it was that I was Christian.
00:56:28.860Over time, I had to come to grips with the fact that in Christ, at the foot of the cross,
00:56:36.820there is no male or female, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free.
00:56:43.660Over time, I had to come to grips with the fact that Christ died not only to reconcile us vertically to the Father,
00:56:53.840but to reconcile us horizontally with one another.
00:56:56.520and that I am a member of the body of Christ